What Does the Fox Say?
by eilonwya10
Summary: "I was thinking more along the lines of huffing and puffing," the witch replies. She's quite a young one, trim in jeans and a tight sweater, with her reddish hair pulled back in a scrunchy. A witch with a penchant for gingerbread, a builder pig, and a slacker fox celebrate Day 14 (gingerbread) of the 25 Days of Fic Challenge.


**A/N:** _Blacky the Pig comes from the version of the "Three Little Pigs" in Andrew Lang's _Green Fairy Book _(1892). That version also features a fox rather than a wolf. This is Day 14 (Gingerbread) of the 25 Days of Fic Challenge._

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1

"I'll grind your bones to powder," is what the fox says, but he sounds bored. He leans back against the fence and lights a cigarette.

"I was thinking more along the lines of huffing and puffing," the witch replies. She's quite a young one, trim in jeans and a tight sweater, with her reddish hair pulled back in a scrunchy. "It's structural stability we're concerned about. I don't want my gingerbread house falling over in the first strong wind."

Blacky the pig pushes his blue pencil more firmly behind one ear and sighs as he edges away from the fox. "It's fine. You've got polkagris for the structural supports and the finest gingerbread we make for the siding. There's not a better house in the village."

Right now, it's also the barest house in the village: nothing but striped sugar poles supporting planks of golden-brown cookie. The icing mortar's dripped a bit, but Blacky's going to call it part of the design.

Left to himself, Blacky would have built in brick. He likes brick. It withstands anything that weather, foxes, or malevolent spirits can throw at it, and it stays cool in the summer, too. He should be grateful the witch didn't want to build in something really insane, like cabbages. His middle sister insisted on building in cabbages: they were nearly impossible to fit together in any sensible way, and they didn't withstand even half a huff, much less a good puff. Blacky had asked for guests at her funeral to donate to his fund for getting a proper building code in place.

The witch twirls her hair around a finger. "I still want some huffing and puffing done. Just in case."

"Oh, very well," the fox says. He scurries toward the house, finds his position, and braces himself, hands on knees. Then he huffs and he puffs. . . and the gingerbread buckles on the third puff.

Blacky rests his forehead in his forehoofs and silently bids his commission goodbye.

2

"I love the texture on the mortar," the witch says. She runs a hand along a golden-brown wall that looks just like a slab of gingerbread but is built of good, solid brick.

Blacky nods and makes a note on his punch list that the candy-striped painting on the door trim needs a touch-up.

3

"Roof repairs?" Blacky says into his cell phone. "Of course. What happened?"

He doesn't believe it until he gets there and sees the children weeding the front garden. The boy's mouth is a mess of cracked and broken teeth, and the girl's expression is grim.

"Come on," the witch says, nudging the boy with a toe. "Tell the nice pig what you did."

The boy mutters something and she tells him to speak up. "Tried to eat a shingle. It looked like candy!"

"I told him not to eat other people's homes," the girl says. "I said it three times, and he wouldn't listen. He never listens. Now she's going to eat us, and he's not even sorry."

"Have I ever eaten any children?" the witch asks Blacky. He can't think of an occasion, and it's the sort of thing he would have noticed. Being eaten is a sensitive point with him, after what happened to his brother and sister.

She reaches around the children to pull up a carrot. "Why would I eat greasy, grizzly children, who've been who-knows-where eating who-knows-what, when I can raise my own organic carrots and live a sustainable lifestyle?"

Blacky makes a note to spec the new roof for solar panels.

4

"She's baking an _arm_," the girl says. It's been three years that the children have stayed in the village, working for the witch, and they've both shot up and out. The boy's had his teeth repaired. The witch has bought the lot behind her cottage and planted a small orchard.

Blacky's happy for them: he's already given the gingerbread house a lean-to for the youngsters' bedrooms and an extension to accommodate the witch's expanding business in medicinal herbs.

Baking arms worry him, though. He takes the fox—who's been appointed police constable, of all things—to visit the witch. A small crowd follows, drawn by the rumor that the witch has finally snapped and decided to eat a person.

The kitchen table is laid with arms, legs, toes, and fingers, and the air is redolent with spices and butter. "Don't be silly," says the witch. "It's a gingerbread man."

"Move along, move along, nothing to see," is what the fox says.

5

John Dough's handshake is surprisingly firm and non-crumbly. He's taller than Blacky and formed with an exactness that's apparent even under skinny jeans, a plaid shirt, and a tuque. Blacky wouldn't have gone with the licorice-whip goatee, but there's no accounting for a witch's tastes.

6

"You can't take him to jail for that!" the girl shrieks. "It's not like John Dough is a _person._ He's a cookie."

The gingerbread man looks at his missing finger and sighs. "Hath not a cookie eyes?"

His are the sweet, mild brown of horehound candy. Standing in the witch's cramped kitchen, it occurs to Blacky to wonder why he's never been asked to add a room for the John Dough. He decides this isn't a question he wants to examine in detail.

The fox snaps handcuffs on the boy, whose breath stinks of gingerbread. "Come along, then," is what the fox says.

7

The girl shocks the entire village by running away with a young man who's a swan for twenty-three hours of the day. Blacky steers clear of the old wives' gossip on how that works.

8

"It's not so much lack of space," the witch says. "It's how it's laid out."

The fox pours himself another cup of tea as if he's at home in Blacky's office, and maybe he is. Since design started on the new jail, he's been here so much that the pig has lost the habit of wincing and shifting away.

Blacky reaches for a stack of blueprints. There's a chicken-legged cottage that's the latest thing in witch abodes, though with the witch's shop, it'd need at least four legs to support that square footage. "What did you have in mind?"

"Just a few little changes, really. I'd like a seating area for the shop and a space for making our signature herbal tea. We're having the crumpets sent in for the foreseeable future, so that's all right. Oh, and I'd like to convert the lean-to into a nursery."

"I didn't know—" Blacky starts to say, before he realizes that he _did_ know and he's known all along.

"We can't decide what to call the baby. It's not like John has a family tradition, but my family's names are ridiculous. Nobody should have three Z's in a single word."

The fox reaches for a cigarette that isn't there since he quit three months ago. "You're having a little ginger. People will call him Nut or Snap. I'd go with Snap." That's what the fox says.


End file.
